Enterprise Library Application Blocks OR Home Grown Framework?

Question

We are currently looking to adopt some type of "standard" developer framework and have looked into using the Enterprise Library. Would you recommend using these blocks as the foundation for software development, or should we do something home grown?

Answer 1

Like all good answers to architecture and programming questions, the answer is "it depends".

It depends on how unique your data access and object design needs are. It may also depend on how you plan on supporting your application in the long term. Finally, it greatly depends on the skill level of your developers.

There isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to this question, but generally, if your main focus is on cranking out software that provides some business value, pick out an existing framework and run with it. Don't spend your cycles building something that won't immediately drive business profits (i.e. increases revenues and/or decreases costs).

For example, one of my organization's projects is core to the operations of the company, needs to be developed and deployed as soon as possible, and will have a long life. For these reasons, we picked CSLA with some help from Enterprise Library. We could have picked other frameworks, but the important thing is that we picked a framework that seemed like it would fit well with our application and our developer skillset and we ran with it.

It gave us a good headstart and a community from which we can get support. We immediately started with functionality that provided business value and were not banging our heads against the wall trying to build a framework.

We are also in the position where we can hire people in the future who have most likely had exposure to our framework, giving them a really good headstart. This should reduce long-term support costs.

Are there things we don't use and overhead that we may not need? Perhaps. But, I'll trade that all day long for delivering business value in code early and often.

Answer 2

It really depends on what you need to do. Generally speaking, the bigger the niche is that your company is in, the better chance that you'll find a framework to properly support you. For smaller niches, you'll more than likely need to roll your own.

The company I work for has several apps all geared twoards estimating the building materials for given buildings. Since this is a pretty specific thing, and we have about 8 apps that are similar, we decided to roll our own and bring in 3rd party libraries when necessary (No sense re-inventing the wheel for some of the stuff)

Your millage may vary of course.